Treasures of Fantasy - Margaret Weis [176]
Aylaen made it as far as the bank of the sluice and then her horse stopped, shaking its head and shivering. Keeper took the reins from her hand and pulled the terrified horse through the water.
Skylan waited until the rest were safely across before he entered the horror-filled stream. A glint of metal caught his eye. He looked down to see a body wearing armor. The dead man’s eyes stared straight into his and Skylan recognized Zahakis.
Skylan checked his horse. He didn’t know what to do. He could call Acronis, perhaps carry the body out of the water. But even as the thought crossed his mind, he had to let it go. The dead were with the gods. This was a night when the living had to look after themselves. “We will meet in Torval’s Hall,” Skylan told Zahakis.
The body collided with another body and slowly turned in the water and drifted on down the stream.
Skylan urged his horse on.
They rode so long that he was afraid they were lost, and then he recognized, in a lightning flash, the practice field at the villa. Skylan took heart; they were not far now from the river where, hopefully, Sigurd was still waiting for them.
Acronis, eager to reach home, pushed his tired horse and galloped ahead of them. Then he jerked on the reins so sharply that his horse twisted and nearly foundered. Acronis sat in the saddle staring straight ahead, his face gray and set as a granite cliff in the rain.
His villa was on fire. Flames were eating through the roof and flaming from the windows. The outbuildings constructed of timber were all ablaze. The trees, the roses, the atrium that Chloe loved, were piles of ashes. As they watched, part of the roof collapsed, sending up an immense cloud of cinders and sparks.
“I remember you told me once that you send your warriors to meet their god in ships of fire,” said Acronis. His voice was toneless, held no emotion. Skylan could see the flames reflected in the man’s dark eyes.
Around them, the wind had lessened, the rain plummeted straight down, the lightning spread across the sky in sheets of blue-white.
“My daughter’s funeral pyre,” said Acronis, and a bleak smile touched his lips. He sighed and his voice quivered. “She would like this much better than being entombed in the catacombs. She wouldn’t have liked the dark.”
A bolt of lightning sizzled through the air, striking a nearby tree. They were so used to the noise that none of them flinched.
Acronis stirred. “Where is your ship?”
“My men carried it to the river.”
“You plan to sail downriver to the sea?”
Skylan nodded. He was keeping a wary eye out for the dragon.
“Navigating the river is tricky, especially now that the waters are rising. I have sailed it since I was a child,” said Acronis. “You will need my help.” He glanced at Skylan. “If you will have me.”
Skylan was astonished. He didn’t know what to say. He could imagine Sigurd’s reaction, that of the others. They might well kill Acronis the moment he set foot on the ship, and Skylan didn’t know that he would much blame them.
“Poor Zahakis,” said Acronis. “This is not much of an inheritance. Still, he will have the land. He can build his own villa.”
“What are you doing?” Keeper roared, riding up to them. The rain was increasing. Hailstones began to fall again, rattling on Skylan’s helm and his armor. “Waiting for the world to end?”
They kicked their weary horses to a trot and rode down the steeply sloping hills toward the slave compound. Skylan had been worried that something might have happened to prevent his men from hauling the Venjekar to the river, but the ship was gone and Skylan breathed easier.
He rode around the back of the compound and bent down over his horse’s neck, searching for signs of his ship’s passage. He found the trench the keel had cut into the ground, the flattened grass on either side. The trail was easy to follow and gave all of them renewed hope.
The dragon was still marauding, still raining down destruction from the heavens. One lightning bolt would turn the Venjekar into a fire ship. He would